Fun was one way of describing it, Mo thought – although if she’d just spent over one hundred thousand on a horse, bloody terrifying might come closer.
“But it’s pointless. You’ll never ride Bandy. He’s way too sharp for a novice.”
“Which is why I’m going to put him with you and abdicate all responsibility. I’ll just enjoy drinking champagne in the owners’ tent, flirting with all the girls in tight jods and showing off when you win Olympic gold,” Ashley replied, still grinning at her. His eyes were bright with enthusiasm. “Besides, I am going to ride. I really liked that white horse that Alex said I could have on the cheap.”
Mo nearly put the Range Rover in the hedge at this. The horse he was talking about had to be worth a cool fifteen grand at least. Ashley’s idea of cheap clearly wasn’t the same as hers.
“It looked pretty docile too,” he continued, picking up his phone and scrolling through his contacts list. “Damn. We must be in a black spot. I’ll plod around on him for a bit and you can teach me. I’ll call Alex when we get a signal; he can deliver them both at the same time. I’ve always wanted a white horse. It’s very Lone Ranger. Hi ho, Silver!”
“The proper term’s grey,” Mo corrected automatically. “There’s no such thing as a white horse.”
“Looked white to me,” said Ashley. “You horsey people certainly like to complicate things.”
Mo decided not to rise to that comment. Ashley, she was fast learning, loved nothing more than to wind her up for a reaction.
“And there’s definitely no such thing as a cheap one,” she continued, turning onto the A38 and heading back towards Polwenna Bay. “That docile plodder you’re so taken with is one of Alex’s old schoolmaster eventers. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.”
“Just as well I’m so obscenely wealthy then,” said Ashley mildly. He shot her a sidelong look from those dangerous eyes. “Oh come on, Red, stop looking so disapproving. Have some fun for once. What’s the point of being known as ‘Cashley’ if I can’t live up to my reputation and spend it? Aren’t I supposed to bathe in champagne and snort coke through fifty-pound notes? I might as well add a few racehorses to the mix. That’ll give the locals something to talk about for a day or two.”
He knew their nickname for him. Mo felt a hot blush of mortification start to sweep up her neck.
“Come on, Mo, you don’t need to pretend you don’t know what they all think of me. I’m an incomer buying up family homes. I bulldoze woodlands and destroy the wildlife. I have a fast boat with a tossy name. I deliberately upset hippies by parking in their car-parking spaces.” Ashley was counting these sins off on his fingers now and looking highly amused. “And did you know that I’m going to buy the church and turn it into a pole-dancing bar?”
Mo had heard all these rumours and to her shame had even been known to pass them on. Now, driving Ashley’s car, owning the woodlands he’d donated to her and knowing that the horse of her dreams was about to return to her yard, they sounded ridiculous.
“Although, the pole-dancing bar is rather tempting,” he said thoughtfully. “It could be a goer. Tell you what, Red, I’ll give you a job if you like? Fancy spinning on my pole? Not sure about the vicar, though, or Sheila Keverne. Don’t want to scare my customers away.”
Mo couldn’t help laughing. That was the thing about Ashley: he had a very dry wit and she was fast realising that people, herself included, tended to take his flippant comments too seriously. He was misunderstood.
“I’m not going anywhere near your pole,” she said primly.
“Pity, it could have been a lot of fun.” He settled back into the leather seat and winked at her. “The offer’s always there. I have a lovely big bed too.”
“By the time you’ve done a few hours in the saddle, all you’ll want to do in bed is sleep,” Mo warned. “I hope you know what you’re in for.”
“Not a clue – but it’ll be fun finding out.”
“One more thing to tick off the bucket list?”
Ashley didn’t reply for a moment; he seemed intent on staring out of the window at the blur of hedgerows and moorland.
“I guess so,” he said eventually.
The playful mood had evaporated abruptly and a spiky silence filled the car. Mo bit her lip, aware that she’d said something to upset him, although she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what. She was on the brink of asking him what was up when Ashley’s phone rang. With the signal restored, he was swiftly embroiled in a long and complicated discussion with Big Roger Pollard. Beneath his cap, a frown creased his brow, and every now and again he pinched the bridge of his nose hard and closed his eyes. He was very pale, Mo noticed, and his skin seemed taut across his high cheekbones. It must have been some drinking session: this hangover from hell had lasted right through to lunchtime.
As Mo steered the car through the narrow back lanes and towards the village, she couldn’t help listening in to the conversation. Ashley was speaking in a low and measured tone but there was an edge of steel beneath the words and Mo glimpsed just how ruthless he could be when he chose. From what she could gather, Big Rog was stalling for some extra time and Ashley wasn’t prepared to compromise.
“I don’t care if you have to work seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day,” he was saying. “Mariners is going to be finished to schedule. I don’t want excuses; I want the work done.”
He paused and Mo could only imagine what Big Rog was saying on his end of the line. He was probably in The Ship already, his lunchtime pint foaming quietly on the bar, and hoping for a bit of slack. Mo had known the Pollards all her life and was under no illusions as to their work ethic.
And neither, it appeared, was Ashley Carstairs.
“I’ve paid you above the going rate and had you on retainer when the weather was poor,” he said in a tone that wouldn’t be argued with. “If you want the bonus, and not to get your arse sued to kingdom come for failing to keep to your side of the contract, then I suggest you get out of the pub and back to work. Mariners’ View will be finished by the end of the summer. Do I make myself clear?”
He pressed the call end button and exhaled sharply. “Bloody useless. I should have brought my own team in from London. They’d have completed the renovations months ago.”
Mo felt honour-bound to stick up for her fellow villagers. The Pollards were slow, it was true, but there wasn’t much about the drainage, prevailing winds or rock strata beneath Polwenna Bay that they didn’t know about.
“They’ll do a good job. You just need to bear with them and give them time. They’re Cornish builders doing the job dreckly,” she said, hoping that the old joke would ease the tension from his face.
But Ashley wasn’t amused. “I haven’t got time for dreckly. I need the house finished.”
Typical impatient city person, Mo thought. Aloud she said, “What’s the rush? Does it really matter if they’re a few weeks over?”
He leant back against the headrest and sighed. “More than I can possibly explain right now. I probably sound like a spoilt brat to you, don’t I?”
“With your million-pound development being held up by a few months? No, of course not. It must be hell to have to slum it at the hotel. Poor old you.”
His lips curled. “Go on, say it. I’m a spoilt brat.”
“No comment,” said Mo. “Anyway, I’m the spoilt one today with The Bandmaster coming back to the yard. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Those dark eyes flickered to hers. The desire in them made her breath catch.
“Oh, I think you do, Red.”
In the past this kind of banter had made Mo’s skin prickle with annoyance. Today though, she was goose-bumpy for a very different reason. She was so conscious of him sitting close to her – of those long, taut breeches-clad thighs stretched out beside hers, the spicy scent of his aftershave, and that gaze that seemed to see past her usual abrasive exterior and straight into her soul – that it was hard at times to focus on the ro
ad.
“This is crazy,” Mo managed to say. “You don’t want an eventer. I don’t know why you bought him.”
“Yes you do,” said Ashley softly. “It’s the same reason I bought the woods. You’ve always known why, Mo. You just don’t dare admit it.”
His hand reached out and covered hers as it lay on the gear selector, the fingers strong and cool as they knitted with hers. For once Mo didn’t snatch her hand away. Cocooned in the world of the car she felt peaceful and as though the instinct to fight her feelings was evaporating.
“Why don’t you just tell me?” Mo asked him quietly. At least, she hoped she’d asked; her mouth was so dry she wasn’t sure if she’d actually voiced the question. Like a timid horse wary of an outstretched hand, she was afraid of getting too close. Danny said she had issues – he was a fine one to talk – but maybe he was right? Mo had certainly never let anyone get under her skin the way that Ashley Carstairs had somehow managed to.
There was no reply and she waited a moment before glancing across, only to discover that Ashley had fallen asleep. His savage hangover must have claimed him; he’d certainly been looking rough all day. His face was still pale and as she stole another look at him Mo noticed that the cheeks beneath his dark stubble were sunken, making his cheekbones even more pronounced. There were shadows beneath his eyes too – evidence, she supposed, of his hard partying.
Or maybe a sleepless night spent making love with somebody? There was no shortage of women who’d find a man like Ashley attractive. In the past Mo had seen him parade identikit skinny blondes through the village. He’d been staying up at the hotel. Maybe Ella St Milton—
Mo shook her head as though attempting to dislodge this thought and the accompanying twinge of something that felt terrifyingly similar to jealousy. You’re being ridiculous, Morwenna, she scolded herself sternly. You need to get a grip! She shouldn’t read anything into the fact that he’d bought The Bandmaster. Ashley was rich and bored, and wasn’t buying things to distract themselves what rich people did? He’d got the big houses, the cars, the flash boat – and now he had an eventer to add to the collection. It was no big deal: he was just buying another toy and she was useful because she could do the hard work.
So, riddle solved.
The trouble was that as much as Mo told herself this, she wasn’t convinced. This didn’t feel like a business transaction. Giving her the woods hadn’t exactly been a smart financial move either, so far as she could see. Then there was that night she’d kissed him at the St Miltons’ ball. Of course, Mo had kissed men before – but never had just the mere brush of another mouth on hers made her feel like she had that night. She caught her breath sharply. Had he felt it too? Something in Mo felt certain that he had…
Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by a kamikaze pheasant strolling across the lane ahead of her; it had appeared so suddenly that she had to almost stand on the brakes to avoid running it over. The jolt was enough to make Ashley’s eyes flutter open.
“Was I asleep?”
“Out cold.” The pheasant, unaware of its narrow escape, strutted into the woodland, and Mo resumed the journey. “Heavy night?”
He smiled. “Yeah, you could say that. I took a couple of painkillers earlier; they must have knocked me out. There’s no way I’d fall asleep otherwise with a woman at the wheel.”
Banter. That was better. She could cope with banter.
“Make all the sexist comments you like. I’ll get my own back when I start teaching you to ride,” Mo warned him. “And feel free to drive now.”
“No, no, we’ve made it this far,” said Ashley quickly. He looked at his flashy watch. “Christ, it’s gone two. I’m probably passing out with hunger. Pull in at the grocers in the next village and we’ll buy some bits for lunch. I’ll get some water too. I need to neck another couple of painkillers.”
“Who am I? Parker?” grumbled Mo.
“Not if that makes me Lady Penelope,” grinned Ashley. “Park up, Red, and I’ll buy us some grub. We’ll picnic on sardines and toast the new horses with ginger beer. We’ll be just like the Famous Five.”
Mo raised her eyes to heaven. “We’d be better off going to the farm-supplies place and buying you a crash hat.”
“Bit chewy,” he said thoughtfully. “Oh come on, humour me. I feel like celebrating my new horses and since I’m now a demanding owner, you have to keep me sweet.”
“Don’t bet on it,” said Mo grimly. “Just buy a loaf and I’ll make you some toast at the yard.”
“I’m going to toast our equestrian partnership with champagne, not Mother’s Pride! Now stop making such a fuss. You know the shop I mean.”
Mo pulled a face. Of course she knew the shop he meant. Situated in the next village to Polwenna Bay, this local store had cunningly evolved to suit the flood of second-homers who flocked to Cornwall each season: it had opened a well-stocked deli offering cheeses that smelled ready to walk off the shelf, ten kinds of hummus, and exotically stuffed vine leaves. Mo, who could just about afford a sausage roll when her livery money came in, could only dream about such luxuries as the store’s baby red peppers stuffed with cream cheese or its wafer-thin slices of prosciutto and its garlic mushrooms that were practically doing the backstroke in olive oil. It stood to reason that Cashley would treat this overpriced place like his corner shop.
She dropped Ashley at the door and drove up the lane to park. The rear-view mirror showed him staggering a little as he walked up the steps. His hangover really must be bad; thank God she never had the time or the funds to go on the lash.
By the time Mo had turned the car around, found a parking space and checked her mobile phone for messages, Ashley was out again carrying a bulging carrier bag and a half-empty bottle of Evian, and was looking much brighter.
“You do know you’ve been totally ripped off, don’t you? They always mark everything up in August,” Mo pointed out once he was back in the Range Rover and they were heading down the back lane that hemmed the cliffs.
“We emmets expect nothing less,” Ashley sighed. “I expect the food will taste even better to you, knowing I’ve been fleeced?”
“Absolutely,” Mo agreed, but the old fire that used to heat their exchanges – the ones in which she’d always accused Ashley of riding roughshod over local traditions – had been extinguished for a while now. Ashley didn’t feel like an incomer anymore. His donating the woods to her, as well as helping to rescue two local fishermen, had more than made up for any past thoughtless actions. Feeling more inclined to be generous towards him, she added, “I know the perfect picnic spot to enjoy gloating in, too.”
Mo tucked the car into an overgrown lay-by and they clambered over a five-bar gate into a field of lush green grass dotted with sheep. At the far side of the pasture was a stile that led into a wheat field rippling in the breeze like an inland sea. Beyond it was the cliff path, freckled with nodding cow parsley and drowsy valerian. Further out still was the bright blue of the ocean and a breathtaking view of Polwenna Bay, laid out in the distance like a model village. They could eat the overpriced picnic, watch the seagulls swooping down and feel the sunshine warm their faces.
Ashley climbed the stile first. His colour and energy both restored now, he placed the shopping on the ground before spinning around and circling Mo’s waist with his hands. Before she could protest, Mo was swept up into the air and then lowered slowly – but even when her boots touched the earth he kept his hands around her waist. His dark eyes glittered down at her from beneath the peak of his cap, and his mouth curled upwards.
Mo’s heart was pounding and she felt a shiver of desire.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said quickly, trying to smother this peculiar feeling. “I’m more than capable of climbing a stile.”
“I know that.” Ashley didn’t look away. Instead, his gaze held hers. “The trouble is, and it’s an absolute menace, that I don’t think I’m capable of resisting you. God knows I’ve tried but, Morwenna Tremaine,
I don’t think I can stay away from you a second longer.”
She stared at him, stunned and lost for words. Not that this mattered; already he’d bent his head and was kissing her. All Mo’s pithy retorts and bravado were swept away in an instant as Ashley’s mouth was pressed warm and firm against her own, his tongue caressing and teasing her as she kissed him back with an urgency that surprised her. His hands were still firm upon her waist, pulling her close against his body as his mouth trailed kisses to the soft skin of her neck before grazing upwards again to claim her lips.
“Oh, Miss Tremaine,” he murmured hoarsely, breaking away and tracing the curve of her cheek with his thumb, “have you any idea what you do to me?”
Mo was trembling like the wheat in the summer breeze. “The same that you do to me,” she whispered.
As he began kissing her again, she melted more with every touch and caress, her senses swimming as she ran her fingers across his masculine back. His muscles tensed and coiled as he held her tightly, the sinews in his arms as strong as steel wire. Her blood was drumming in her ears as though a thousand horses were galloping over the sun-baked earth. When his hips ground against hers, Mo gasped with the jolt of unexpected desire.
This was getting dangerous. Just how much of a chance did she want to take?
Her question was soon answered as he lifted her into his arms, carrying her deep into the crops before laying her tenderly down amid the crushed stalks. As the blue sky swam overhead and the seagulls shrieked, all Mo could think about was how she needed to feel that mouth on hers again. Nothing else mattered.
The risk no longer seemed to matter.
Chapter 9
Since becoming a vicar Jules had witnessed many strange things and seen some rather odd aspects of human behaviour. Nevertheless, her role was to listen, comfort and help, not to pass judgement or to show a reaction. This had been getting easier and easier with every year of experience she’d gained, and by the time she’d arrived at St Wenn’s, Jules had been pretty certain that there was nothing much life could throw at her now that would be a surprise.
A Time for Living: Polwenna Bay 2 Page 8